VMware ESXi 6.0 - Unsupported Hardware

Double check your vendor support when updating ESXi hosts from VMware vSphere 5.5 to 6.0. There are a lot of systems that are no longer supported. The following servers were supported in 5.5 but are according to the VMware HCL no longer supported in vSphere 6.0.

Your server is listed and you want to upgrade? Don't panic.

Usually, the list gets smaller a couple of weeks after a new vSphere version has been released. I will update this post when I notice changes.

Not supported does not mean that it does not work.

Servers get certified by their vendor, not VMware. If you want a server to get certified, ask your vendor.

Vendor support matrices and VMware HCL have some mismatches at the moment (HP and IBM). Servers are listed at the bottom. Please ask your vendor or VMware if you are allowed to upgrade.

As an interesting way of seeing how things progress, would you mind NOT deleting items from the list when the vendor adds support?

Perhaps just do a strikethrough on that line with a note on the end of the date you noticed support was added (obviously not the exact date it was added, but whenever you noticed should be close enough)

Something interesting to me is some models that are listed are definitely supported by their OEM, but digging in it seems like the HCL published support is for Ivy Bridge (v2) but not Sandy Bridge (v1).
So I wouldn't panic if you see a fairly new model that you use on the list.
I expect a lot of those will disappear over time.

On previous verisons (had this list for 5.5 and 5.1) were lot of changes in the first weeks. I also had mismatches between VMware HCL and Vendor HCL (eg. HP which I check often as this is our vendor of choice.)

I create this list more or less automatically, so it's not directly possible to to strike systems out. But I am going to do a diff on the changes to point out when servers appear in the HCL.

There is a custom ISO patch for the Dell R510 on the dell forums but even the Dell engineers will not acknowledge it exists, and they put it on there. I am going to be testing it here pretty soon on one of the two hosts.

Lenovo ThinkServer TS440 (Intel Xeon E3-1245-v3) works even though not on the supported list. Also worth mentioning - no longer need to inject the net-e1000e-2.3.2.x86_64.vib. The ISO comes with newer driver.

I've been running ESXi 6 on 3x PowerEdge 2900 servers with E5400 series Xeon CPUs for months. We have not identified any issues in ESXi and vCenter. We use several utilities to monitor and manage, and there has been no issue there as well.

The E5400 is in the VMware Compatibility Guide, but the entire server is not listed. Dell support only lists up to ESXi 5.5, so we just used the Dell ESXi 6 image from newer servers.

It's always good to check back on the VMware HCL after a while. Before summer, our HP BL465c G7 was not listed as supported for ESXi 6.0, but now they are. Seems as it just took some time to take them thru the certification/support enablement process.

Hi, I own Supermicro with X5650 which is unsupported by 6.0.
On bare metal host it simply doesn't dectect my onboard NICs, I cannot manage ESXi 6.0 hosts.
However, I did simple trick - upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 via command-line (see official Guide at https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2109711, esxcli) and it works as expected.. No missing drivers..

Hi, please can anyone tell me, if it is possible to run ESXi 6 on a DELL PowerEdge 2950-III (Intel Xeon 54xx Series)? Especialy with the build in drivers for the Raid-Controller DELL PERC 6/i.
Thank you
Roy

Hello guys great job, I would like to ask you about, I would buy an HP ProLiant DL360 G6 with 72 gb memory to install windows with vmware workstation, then install 4 esxi 5.5 or 6.0 to create a host NSX laboratory for expert examination. Do you think it possible?

This post only states that the DL360 G6 is not supported by VMware. That means, if you run it in production and you have a problem related to the hardware, VMware may not be able to help you. In no way it means that ESXi 6 does not work on the DL360 G6. I', pretty sure it does. If you just want to test NSX, you probably don't care about support, so everything fine with your idea. If you are completely new to NSX, maybe HOL is also a alterntive. (http://labs.hol.vmware.com/)

Resources of you DL360 with 72GB Memory should be enough. I had a lab with 32GB Memory ;-)
If possible, I would install ESXi on your DL360, not Windows with VMware Wokstation. This should perform better. If you don't want to use a second pc to manage everything, VMware Workstation should also work...

Hello fgrehl
Thanks for your prompt response, I have already taken the VCP6-NV certification and now I'm studying for the expert VCIX-NV.
Laboratories (http://labs.hol.vmware.com/) are very useful, but I can't do some things with the VPN ssl and update end installation.
So at a cost of around € 250 I had thought about buying DL360 with 72GB Memory install vmware workstation 12 to create 3 or 4 esxi ans connect them with the network router for build one lab.
What you think ?

Why not installing ESXi on the DL360 and run nested ESXi there? Running VMs on Nested ESXi hosts works a little bit better then running everything in VMware Workstation.
Nested ESXi on the Free ESXi works great.

You thanks for the advice, as I understand it you're telling me to install the software on HP servers esxi then inside the install a vm with windows where I install workstation then inside workstation install 4 esxi host?